Athena, I've been hoping to see a thread here on PTSD or mental illness generally. I came back to philosophy later in life searching for answers to questions of mental illness, mental health and morality.

It seems to me that philosophy doesn't seem to offer much on these topics? I am a lay philosopher, and sure I am missing something, so recommendations from anyone would be appreciated!

Personally, I know there are other causes of PTSD. I was born without a left hip socket and put in a body cast at age one. I did not have the vocabulary to record this experience with words, — Athena

How has this experience shaped your life, your sense of self?

Gabor Mate's "The Myth of Normal" starts with early trauma, his experiences as an infant separated from his family during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. The experience shaped his entire life, and forms a key touchstone in his book.

At this time in history, we seemed to think only soldiers had PTSD — Athena

This is why I was so 'surprised' to realize I had PTSD. It was, in retrospect, obvious. I could tell my body was experiencing a 'fight or flight' response. But because my 'trauma' was the death of my brother, who had battled schizophrenia to a draw for decades, only to succumb to an overdose - and not a visceral, present 'trauma' in the sense of a soldier, it did not occur to me - nor to anyone around me, despite my years of experience with counselling, as a patient and in the trenches as a high school teacher - that I had PTSD.

If I'm recommending Mate, I am already positioning myself outside of the ranks of the DSM-5 crew. I do view psych as having scientific grounding, it's just such a young discipline, and the topic is so vast, I hesitate to call it hard science.

Is it safe to argue that we are, in the WEIRD world at least, facing a mental health crisis, in particular with young people? If so, what light can philosophy shed on these topics?

Oh yeah, we are very aware that COVID strongly impacted children, and many have fallen so out of society, they may never become a part of mainstream society. I do not think the problem is COVID alone. Many of these children also experience bad parenting. Their parents can not teach them good coping skills because they don't have good coping skills themselves, and many of the parents may also be dealing with PTSD. All of this is going on in my family, and I do not feel good about the future of almost all of my family members.

Back in the day of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, you know, they had to be dealing with PTSD. Socrates was totally hung up on the war with Sparta. He could not accept Athens' defeat, and with his belief system, that defeat was caused by the gods because somehow Athens must have displeased them. The rest of his life was a struggle to understand what Athens did wrong, to lead to the gods punishing them.

We can not separate people's belief systems from all the rest, the PDST, and the parenting, and the history in the moment, and the stress factors in the moment, and the resources of lack of resources. Their belief tells them why things are as they are, and for me, not knowing anything about PTSD, I went through a short period of thinking I was possibly possessed by Satan. In my world at that time, that was a real and serious concern.

I had to make a decision: either the Christian mythology was true and I was possessed by Satan, or it was all a false belief. Every day, I am extremely grateful that I decided Christian mythology is a false belief. And I determined to get on with my life, get counseling, return to college, and thank goodness LEARN MORE ABOUT THE GODS AND PHILOSOPHY.

And sorry, guys, but male counselors can be part of the problem. :rofl: What we are talking about here is more complex than many would realize. No, the ancient philosophers didn't create the subject of psychology, but they understood the archetypes, which is a different subject. They did hold a notion of us becoming our own heroes. Stand up straight, determine what is the right thing to do, and move forward. Keep focused on what is right and good. In a Patriarchy, this is different for men and women. I resent what the Patriarchy did to men and women. And that is another subject tied to the complex subject of our sanity and ability to care for ourselves.

Slowly, the Athenians pulled away from superstition until they thought a new religion was God's truth. Oh my, there is too much to talk about. The Heaven and Hell of the new religion came from Persia. Alexander opened the world to a new, contagious false belief system. :lol: We amuse our beliefs are correct, but when Satan appears to be consuming your life, you might want to question that belief system, and the reality of Satan possessing people, and the whole social order, and the role men and women play in it.

Bottom line- with no idea of what PTSD is, our beliefs and expectations can be very problematic.

Back in the day of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, you know, they had to be dealing with PTSD — Athena

I assumed yes and googled examples. First result was "Athenian soldiers witnessing the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.". Second was 'shell-shock' in WW1. People disputed the existence of that. I think we have examples of PTSD from history, but perhaps not a recognition of it as a state the way there appears to have been historical understanding of 'depression' or 'heartbreak'.

I really enjoyed this article by Shayla Love, who writes with real empathy and insight on issues of mental health and illness.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-relatable-emotions-of-depressed-people-from-3000-years-ago/

“If Depression continually falls upon him, he continually sighs, he eats bread and drinks beer but it does not go well for him, then says, ‘Oh, my heart!’ and is dejected, he is sick with Lovesickness; it is the same for a man and a woman.”

Could be me, today, but this was written on stone tablets in cuneiform 3000 years ago.

Love's article also touches on historical examples of OCD and phobias.

Mental illness exists in animals, who can 'learn helplessness' - a state resembling severe depression.

I worry that our modern technocratic society is fixated on 'medical' considerations in mental illness, rather than the profoundly, universally human (animal?) nature of these forms of suffering, that has biological, psychological and social causes.

I do not feel good about the future of almost all of my family members. — Athena

I am very sorry to hear this.

Conversation and community can help, as can counselling. When my closest friend in high school killed himself, the people around me, and myself, were paralyzed into inaction, because our norms couldn't process Ryan's choice. Whatever the solutions, suffering should not be 'a private matter', nor a source of shame. I say that morally, but plenty of data supports this take.

for me, not knowing anything about PTSD, I went through a short period of thinking I was possibly possessed by Satan. — Athena

Terrifying.

Suffering seems a human universal. “Even if the symptoms get organized slightly differently, or the labels are slightly different from one time period or place to the next, I think it’s important to show how old our experiences are,” Al-Rashid said. “There are these common denominators in our experiences of mental distress that have always been there. And a lot of people say it makes them feel less alone.”

Bottom line- with no idea of what PTSD is, our beliefs and expectations can be very problematic. — Athena

We DO have some idea what PTSD is - a hyper-attenuated fight-or-flight response, activated and problematic due to unexpected / severe trauma.

The further we go from this starting point, the more abstract the concepts become. Does 'generational trauma' lead to PTSD, or is this best described with different language?

Do you have texts / authors / counsellors that have helped you? I sure hope you have gotten more support than a 'possession' diagnosis!

I agree with Al-Rashid and Love, in that greater knowledge of the universality of these experiences, greater understanding of the conditions themselves, can reduce individual suffering. Or, at least, they did for me!

Does anyone on TPF have experience with philosophical counselling? I have only recently heard the term, but it makes sense to me, and I am seeing it mentioned more often.

Another good article by Love, this time a personal narrative of her own family trauma.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/my-grandparents-trauma-is-in-my-blood/

She notes this concept, inherited trauma, is contentious, but it sure resonates intuitively. Events like the Cultural Revolution of the Holocaust were grand enough in scale to have shaped future generations.

What effects from the pandemic might we anticipate from a generation that shared this trauma? Are certain epochal traumatic events more or less impactful? Why?

While the long term result of trauma tends to be chronic stress, the long term result of abuse is more typically shame, guilt, self-disgust.

Trauma and abuse are by no means mutually exclusive of course.

She notes this concept, inherited trauma, is contentious, but it sure resonates intuitively. — Jeremy Murray

On the one hand damaged parents are more likely to damage their children all unwilling, and on the other, epigenetics have been shown to be affected by trauma and passed down at least one generation.
https://www.theembodylab.com/blog/cross-generational-trauma-and-personality-the-interplay-of-genetics-epigenetics-and-healing

What excites me most about your post is the possibility of dropping our religious notions and working with a more scientific understanding of our creation and existence. I think the proof of evolution is solid, with no doubt that we are evolved animals.

As I read your post, I thought of people with addiction problems who speak about needing to avoid things that "trigger" the desire to use. Then my mind goes on to recall the book "Emotional Intelligence" and on to Kahneman's book "Thinking Fast and Slow" and the following books that put a stronger emphasis on emotions. We don't all read the books, but we can understand triggers that compel us to do things, like a picture of something good to eat makes me hungry.

We might at least be more compassionate with people having a hard time. Hum,:chin: I love thinking, and now I am thinking about the argument about our free will. I thank my stars that I was given a sense of strength, which makes it possible for me to resist temptation and urges. PTSD can lead to what we might call acts of evil. It is easy to understand how people could have believed in being possessed by Satan or demons when they had only the religious stories to explain reality and not science. Punishing people who have mental defects that lead to bad decisions is no better than killing people suspected of being witches. If someone does wrong, there has to be a reason for that, and perhaps that is what we should address. Don't stop at judging a person who made a bad decision.

When I learned of PTSD, it was one of the best days in my life because the chaos in my mind was changed. The stress factors in my life had led me to experiencing myself as several different personalities, and one of them was out to kill me. This was different from being one person having different experiences. By this time, I had learned about PTSD while I was cleaning a VA office, where there were flyers explaining the problem. I also read a book about traumatized children, and at an Est function, I regressed to my experience of being put in a body cast. I gave all this information to my counselor, and he regressed me to the moment of crisis, and helped me rewrite the story that was in my head. I returned to being one person with different experiences, and that was the end of my struggle for my sanity.

I want to stress the importance of determining that Satan is not real and that Christian mythology is problematic, because how we understand reality and the reasoning and beliefs we use, makes a huge difference in all judgments. I am very glad we are no longer burning witches or fearing being possessed by Satan. But what if we had not evolved, but were still apes without language and stories to live by?

Sorry, but I have to use AI because this is too serious to ignore....

Traumatized apes, particularly chimpanzees, can exhibit symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, often resulting from experiences like social deprivation, stressful events, captivity, invasive lab experiments, and the loss of their mothers. Common symptoms include self-mutilation, hypervigilance, dissociative behaviors, angry outbursts, and social withdrawal. Rehabilitation efforts for traumatized apes focus on providing social connections, environmental enrichment, freedom of movement, and therapy to help them cope with their ongoing psychological distress.

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On the one hand damaged parents are more likely to damage their children all unwilling, and on the other, epigenetics have been shown to be affected by trauma and passed down at least one generation. — unenlightened

If I had known what I know today, I would have stayed single and avoided being a mother until I was confident that problems were resolved. But that is so unrealistic. Number one I had no idea I had PTSD. Number 2, society, and my father, demanded I get married, have children, and stay home to care for the family. I was doing the best I could to be the ideal woman of my day.

I like the question about our freedom of will. It is our nature to react to life as it unfolds. Philosophically, what is our part in life? Can this be considered having free will, or is it more like being on a train, not separate from the flow of history?

What effects from the pandemic might we anticipate from a generation that shared this trauma? Are certain epochal traumatic events more or less impactful? Why? — Jeremy Murray

I strongly hope that we shift our attention to the children who will never go to college and consider how we can integrate them into industrial jobs that do not require education. If we do not, I fear the future will have to deal with even homelessness and welfare cases as a result of a flood of poorly prepared young people lacking not only education skills but also social skills and an understanding of how people survive in an industrial economy. We have to make the effort to keep them included in society, as years ago we made an effort to keep seniors involved with the greater society.

The more I think on this, the more urgent the need to take action, seems to me.

On the one hand damaged parents are more likely to damage their children all unwilling, and on the other, epigenetics have been shown to be affected by trauma and passed down at least one generation. — unenlightened

Hey unenlightened. I certainly agree with the epigenetic take, that's the contentious stance in some psych circles. Gabor Mate takes flak for arguing this stance, but I imagine it's just hard to prove, rather than a flawed take. Have you read him?

What excites me most about your post is the possibility of dropping our religious notions and working with a more scientific understanding of our creation and existence. I think the proof of evolution is solid, with no doubt that we are evolved animals. — Athena

Cool! Sam Harris has an interesting book advancing a scientific approach to morals, 'The Moral Landscape'.

When it comes to our emotional lives, I value evolutionary psychology. Emotions are selected for because of the benefits they bring us. That's another of those insights I wish I'd had years back. The anger I always struggled to control was teaching me something important. My fear of anger (and, later in life, my fear of sadness) blinded me to the insights these emotions could have provided.

The idea of 'apes with PTSD' is further evidence of environment impacting the mind.

I know you've had bad experiences with religion, but I don't think we can simply dismiss religion entirely, despite being an atheist myself. John Gray has convinced me that many of our modern liberal values are grounded in Christian belief, for example.

I guess I look at religion as philosophy, rather than any sort of divine commandment.

"Thinking Fast and Slow" — Athena

I've been inspired to consider virtue ethics by conversations here on TPF, and have been reflecting on the virtues I'd like to cultivate personally. Kahneman's book got me considering "slow thinking". It isn't a virtue per se ... carefulness? Presence?

PTSD can lead to what we might call acts of evil. — Athena

I often reflect of free will and moral responsibility in the realm of mental health. My brother was schizophrenic and, several times while in the throws of psychosis, he acted violently towards our dad or some of our friends.

That is unambiguous to me - he is largely NOT responsible. But PTSD, depression, anxiety - these conditions are not breaks from reality, but rather, complications. To me, a violent reaction under the effects of PTSD is perhaps minimized in terms of moral responsibility, but the individual is still responsible. Same with addicts. Alas, this kind of thinking can easily become a slippery slope.

When I learned of PTSD, it was one of the best days in my life because the chaos in my mind was changed — Athena

A LOT of people have similar reactions, regardless of the diagnosis. It's powerful to have a name, a body or research to pursue, established approaches for dealing with the condition, etc. I felt 'the chaos in my mind' was alleviated by reading "The Myth of Normal", "It's Okay that You are not Okay" (on bereavement) and "When Madness Comes Home" (on the caregiver burden facing families of those with psychosis).

The more I think on this, the more urgent the need to take action, seems to me. — Athena

100% agreed. And yet, I don't see anything, anywhere, targeting the COVID generation students as a cohort. I grew to detest the expression "the pandemic was hard on all of us", innocent though the speakers intent may have been.

It was harder on the more vulnerable. Children, at a critical developmental phase unlike anything in adulthood, are 'more vulnerable'. Closing schools as long as we did was THE moral failure of the pandemic.

You have had positive experiences with regression? That's another of those 'contentious' concepts in psych. I know it has been used negligently in some cases, people being regressed to experiences they did not have, leading in some cases to severe consequences for others.

But I also know many people have benefitted. Can you talk more about your experiences? I don't think I've ever talked to someone who has been 'regressed' before!

A LOT of people have similar reactions, regardless of the diagnosis. It's powerful to have a name, a body or research to pursue, established approaches for dealing with the condition, etc. I felt 'the chaos in my mind' was alleviated by reading "The Myth of Normal", "It's Okay that You are not Okay" (on bereavement) and "When Madness Comes Home" (on the caregiver burden facing families of those with psychosis). — Jeremy Murray

I decided to delete my reply and try again. I think I should check out "When Madness Comes Home" because of the problems my family is dealing with. I do not remember the title of the book about traumatized children that I read about the same time I discovered a V.A. explanation of PTSD. I Googled for books on the subject, and today there are many books about traumatized children. I think these books are so important. Especially when we are struggling to keep our sanity and don't know why, or we may have a child who is struggling to cope with something that should not have happened.

The world has changed so much in the last 60 years. I was horrified by the belief that parents could divorce or families could move, and the children would adjust. Completely ignorant of the harm done to children when a child's life is disrupted and the child has no power over that, and not even caring people who understand we should not be so careless with children. In my day, it was wrong to cry or to be unhappy. This wasn't just so for me, but my friends also experienced this. I think the Great Depression and war contributed to the demands that our children be as brave soldiers. Today, there are books and counseling, and a change in how we raise children. I am hoping this awareness and change continue.

Before I was regressed, I read a book about how we talk to ourselves and how our memories can be wrong or just hard to live with. I think it was titled "Linguistics". And as I explained I had figured out what caused my PTSD when I was, age one and could not have had a reasonable understanding of what was done to me. I was in a body cast for a year, at an age when children develop a sense of autonomy. Not something I do while stuck in cement. I am sure I separated from my body and lived in a separate mental reality.

The point I want to make is that I had done my homework. I had been with the counselor who could do what I call brain magic. That is, change how I talked to myself or the story I was telling myself. It was helpful because I was also going through a bad marriage, which set off my PTSD. But is wasn't the cause of it. I needed them to figure out the cause was that moment my mother discovered something was wrong with my legs, and then waking as a one-year-old child to find my body trapped in cement. When the counselor regressed me I became aware of my mother's fear in those two moments and the intense chaotic horror of being put in a cast. Most important was how my mother felt! If she was scared, things were very bad.

Okay, back up to linguistics and brain magic. As the baby I told him about my mother's fear, and he "corrected" that story. He assured the baby my mother was okay and capable of taking good care of me. My internal baby wanted that reassurance and gladly accepted it. Within days, I realized I was back to being one person, instead of a few different personalities. It might not work so well for everyone. I think knowing the exact experience is important, and all the work I had done up to that point improved my chances. Also, I am very open to suggestions, so the mind magic works well for me.

Before I discovered the correct event, my counselor thought it was something that happened when I was much older. A female counselor was much more helpful than the male counselors regarding that issue. I am quite sure I am aware of why there might be reason to be concerned, because false memories can be created or at least an unfortunate ingredient that prevents the right explanation, and that makes matters worse. Before I came to the right event, the counseling experience was a problem. It is kind of like having a gall bladder removed when that is not the problem.

I want to just take a look at the other side, for a moment. And I'm gonna start with an iconoclasm:

There is no such thing as sanity; it's not even a desirable goal.

The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted. — Aldous Huxley

https://kfoundation.org/it-is-no-measure-of-health-to-be-well-adjusted-to-a-profoundly-sick-society/

I see on this site every day, a sometimes frantic defence of rationalism, as if logic and science can tell us how to live. This is a profound madness that denies trauma in an escape to imagined invulnerability.

Every one of us was born, and birth is traumatic. As a child, I used to have a couple of recurring nightmares. One was of being in a field, and suddenly starting to feel crushed; there was no escape from this killing pressure. The other was of my first home. I was in the kitchen, and there was a dark passage from there past the stairs to the hall and thence to the living room, and I had to go to the living room and light the fire. I was terrified, for some reason of I knew not what monster waiting for me. Both dreams ended in the middle without resolution.
I think it was learning the facts of life, about age 11, that I realised that these were dreams of experiencing contractions, and the passing of the birth canal, respectively. I think it is rather rare to maintain any conscious contact with one's birth at all, and I was fortunate in being my mother's 5th child and having a very easy and quick birth. But I do not think I am free of trauma.

The essence of trauma is overwhelming unbearable feelings, that have to be locked away from consciousness, and this results in a splitting of oneself into the one who copes, and the unacceptable one who cannot cope. The irony of this is that the one who is coping every day is the one that cannot cope with the trauma that the locked away unacceptable self is living with in secret.

People who think they can cope are the most dangerous; because their feelings are locked away, they are capable of anything. So I want to say to you all, that if you are feeling traumatised, if you are feeling fragmented, if you are hurt and cannot cope, then you are the fortunate ones, who have not lost all contact with their feelings. Treasure the pain of the human condition, and do not lose your humanity. You are the rightful leaders of society, who lead spiritually and in practical service.